The Karma of Productskth.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:916120/FULLTEXT02.pdf · Paper III Rafael Laurenti, David Lazarevic, Sofia Poulikidou, Valeria Montrucchio, Luigi Bistagnino,

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The Karma of Products:

Exploring the Causality of Environmental Pressure with Causal Loop Diagram and Environmental Footprint

Doctoral Thesis

Rafael Laurenti

Industrial Ecology

School of Architecture and the Built Environment

KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Stockholm, Sweden

2016

✐ă Title: The Karma of Products: Exploring the Causality of Environmental Pressure with Causal Loop Diagram and Environmental Footprint

Author:

Rafael Laurenti

Division of Industrial Ecology

Department of Industrial Economics and Management

School of Industrial Engineering and Management

KTH Royal Institute of Technology

TITRA-IM-PHD 2016:01

ISBN: 978-91-7595-910-8

Printed by:

Universitetetsservice US-AB, Stockholm, Sweden, 2016

✐ă

“[…] Karma is not about immediate retribution

but rather about the impossibility of ultimately

escaping the consequences of our own actions […]”

― Hindu and Buddhist saying

✐ă

✐ăC o n t e n t s

My debts ................................................................................................................................................................. i

Summary .............................................................................................................................................................. iii

Appended papers ............................................................................................................................................ v

1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................................... 3

1.1 Aim and objectives ............................................................................................................................ 4

1.2 Research trajectory, motivation and questions ...................................................................... 6

2. Product design and the (pre)determination and occurrence of environmental

pressure ................................................................................................................................................................15

3. Methodology ...........................................................................................................................................21

3.1 Causal loop diagram .......................................................................................................................21

3.1.1 How CLD was applied in Paper I ........................................................................................24

3.1.2 How CLD was applied in Paper II .......................................................................................25

3.1.3 How CLD was applied in Paper III .....................................................................................25

3.2 LCA-based footprint ........................................................................................................................27

3.2.1 How LCA-based footprint was applied in Paper IV ....................................................29

3.2.2 How LCA-based footprint was applied in Paper V .....................................................31

3.3 Method in Paper VI ..........................................................................................................................33

4. Key results of Papers I-VI ...................................................................................................................37

4.1 Paper I ...................................................................................................................................................37

4.2 Paper II ..................................................................................................................................................40

4.3 Paper III .................................................................................................................................................42

4.4 Paper IV ................................................................................................................................................45

4.5 Paper V .................................................................................................................................................47

4.6 Paper VI ................................................................................................................................................50

✐ă5. Discussion ..................................................................................................................................................55

5.1 Quality and relevance of causal loop diagrams ....................................................................55

5.2 The issue of using secondary data in LCA ...............................................................................56

5.3 Difficulties in acquiring primary data and data gaps .........................................................57

5.4 A need for improved waste declaration in LCA and standardised principles and

procedures? .....................................................................................................................................................58

5.5 Can product design(ers) help? Some suggestions and other general inquiries ......60

6. Conclusions ...............................................................................................................................................65

6.1 Beyond the results – a philosophical final reflection and wish for the future ..........68

References ...........................................................................................................................................................71

✐ă i

My debts

I want to thank the many people without whose help this thesis and my PhD education

could never been realised (from August 2010 to May 2016). I acknowledge the financial

support from the European Commission during the first 3 years of my PhD research and

education under the Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Windows “EU-Brazil

STARTUP”. I also thank the Division of Industrial Ecology, KTH, for funding the remaining

time. I am enormously grateful to my supervisor Professor Björn Frostell for his time and

patience spent with me and for his valuable guidance in broadening my perspective on

sustainability issues through the application of systems thinking. I am indebted to

Professor Ronald Wennersten for inviting me to study for my PhD at the Division of

Industrial Ecology, KTH. I am grateful to my fellow employees (from June 2014) at IVL

Swedish Environmental Research Institute for being so flexible, especially Åsa Stenmarck

and Jenny Gode.

I would also like to thank the Industrial Ecology KTH staff Karin, Kosta, Julia, Daniel, Maria,

Fredrik, Olga, Monika, Hanna, Larsgöran, Olena, POP, Nils and Per and PhD colleagues

Jagdeep, Rajib, Sun, Bo, Svetlana, Tatiana, Anna, Graham, Joseph, Jiechen, JB, Mauricio,

Oleksii, Kateryna, Dave, Anders, Hosseins, Emma, Stefan, Kristin, Song and Sofie, for making

such a friendly work atmosphere. I had a really pleasant time during our excursions, fikas,

lunches and talks. Special thanks to those who contributed constructive ideas and

feedbacks to my research.

I would like to add a particular thank you to Professor Emeritus Staffan Laestadius for

taking the time to read my cover essay in great detail. His comments and suggestions

immensely improved the quality of my thesis.

Thanks to all the co-authors of the six papers on which this thesis is based for helping and

sharing their constructive ideas. Thanks also to other colleagues and anonymous peer-

reviewers who pointed out weaknesses and made useful suggestions for improving the

papers.

Any remaining weaknesses in the cover essay and in the three papers are, of course, my

own.

✐ă ii

Last but not least, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my parents Tadeu and

Ana, my siblings Ricardo and Nicolle and my wife Zaye for their invaluable encouragement,

limitless understanding, enormous patience and unconditional loving support, and my

deepest appreciation to my son Leonardo, born 25 June 2015, for choosing me as a father

and for providing the most precious and genuine reason and meaning to all this and to

everything else.

Rafael Laurenti

11th May 2016

Stockholm, Sweden

✐ă iii

Summary

Environmental pressures from consumer products and mechanisms of predetermination

were examined in this thesis using causal loop diagram (CLD) and life cycle assessment

(LCA) footprinting to respectively illustrate and provide some indicators about these

mechanisms. Theoretical arguments and their practical implications were subjected to

qualitative and quantitative analysis, using secondary and primary data. A study

integrating theories from various research fields indicated that combining product-service

system offerings and environmental policy instruments can be a salient aspect of the

system change required for decoupling economic growth from consumption and

environmental impacts. In a related study, modes of system behaviour identified were

related to some pervasive sustainability challenges to the design of electronic products.

This showed that because of consumption and investment dynamics, directing consumers

to buy more expensive products in order to restrict their availability of money and avoid

increased consumption will not necessarily decrease the total negative burden of

consumption. In a study examining product systems, those of washing machines and

passenger cars were modelled to identify variables causing environmental impacts

through feedback loops, but left outside the scope of LCA studies. These variables can be

considered in LCAs through scenario and sensitivity analysis. The carbon, water and energy

footprint of leather processing technologies was measured in a study on 12 tanneries in

seven countries, for which collection of primary data (even with narrow systems

boundaries) proved to be very challenging. Moreover, there were wide variations in the

primary data from different tanneries, demonstrating that secondary data should be used

with caution in LCA of leather products. A study examining pre-consumer waste

developed a footprint metric capable of improving knowledge and awareness among

producers and consumers about the total waste generated in the course of producing

products. The metric was tested on 10 generic consumer goods and showed that

quantities, types and sources of waste generation can differ quite radically between

product groups. This revealed a need for standardised ways to convey the environmental

and scale of significance of waste types and for an international standard procedure for

quantification and communication of product waste footprint. Finally, a planning

framework was developed to facilitate inclusion of unintended environmental

consequences when devising improvement actions. The results as a whole illustrate the

quality and relevance of CLD; the problems with using secondary data in LCA studies;

difficulties in acquiring primary data; a need for improved waste declaration in LCA and a

standardised procedure for calculation and communication of the waste footprint of

products; and systems change opportunities for product engineers, designers and policy

makers.

✐ă iv

✐ă v

Appended papers

Paper I Rafael Laurenti, Jagdeep Singh, Rajib Sinha, Josepha Potting, Björn Frostell,

2015. Unintended environmental consequences of improvement actions: A

qualitative analysis of systems’ structure and behavior. Systems Research and

Behavioral Science online. doi: 10.1002/sres.2330.

Paper II Rafael Laurenti, Rajib Sinha, Jagdeep Singh, Björn Frostell, 2015. Some

pervasive challenges to sustainability by design of electronic products – a

conceptual discussion. Journal of Cleaner Production 108 (Part A), 281-288. doi:

10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.08.041.

Paper III Rafael Laurenti, David Lazarevic, Sofia Poulikidou, Valeria Montrucchio, Luigi

Bistagnino, Björn Frostell, 2014. Group model-building to identify potential

sources of environmental impacts outside the scope of LCA studies. Journal of

Cleaner Production 72, 96-109. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.03.001.

Paper IV Rafael Laurenti, Michael Redwood, Rita Puig, Björn Frostell, 2015. Measuring

the environmental footprint of leather processing technologies in selected

countries. Submitted manuscript.

Paper V Rafael Laurenti, Åsa Moberg, Åsa Stenmarck, 2016. Calculating the pre-

consumer waste footprint – a screening study of 10 selected products.

Submitted manuscript.

Paper VI Rafael Laurenti, Rajib Sinha, Jagdeep Singh, Björn Frostell, 2016. Towards

addressing unintended environmental consequences: A planning framework.

Sustainable Development 24(1), 1-17. doi: 10.1002/sd.1601.

I was responsible for the literature review, data collection, analysis, calculations and writing

in Papers I-VI.

✐ă vi

Other peer-reviewed journal publications related to this thesis:

Singh, J., Laurenti, R., Sinha, R. & Frostell, B. (2014). Progress and challenges to the global

waste management system. Waste Management & Research: The Journal of the International

Solid Wastes and Public Cleansing Association, ISWA 32(9), 800-812.

doi:10.1177/0734242X14537868

Wang, Q., Laurenti, R. & Holmberg, S. (2015). A novel hybrid methodology to evaluate

sustainable retrofitting in existing Swedish residential buildings. Sustainable Cities and

Society 16, 24-38. doi:10.1016/j.scs.2015.02.002

Zhou, G., Singh, J., Wu, J., Sinha, R., Laurenti, R. & Frostell, B. (2015). Evaluating low-carbon

city initiatives from the DPSIR framework perspective. Habitat International 50, 289-299.

doi:10.1016/j.habitatint.2015.09.001

Licentiate thesis

Laurenti, R. (2013). Applications of Systems Thinking within the Sustainability Domain: Product

Design, Product Systems and Stakeholder Perspectives. (Licentiate in Technology), KTH Royal

Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. Retrieved from

http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-122415 (1402-7615)

✐ă

“There are professions more harmful than industrial design, but only a very few of them. And

possibly only one profession is phonier. Advertising design, in persuading people to buy things

they don’t need, with money they don’t have, in order to impress others who don’t care, is

probably the phoniest field in existence today.”

― Victor Papanek

✐ă

✐ăIntroduction The Karma of Products

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3

1 . In t roduct ion

Products are the result of technological developments and are brought to existence to

satisfy (existing and potential) consumer needs and intentions. Since the industrial

revolution and the advent of mass production, countless positive effects on human

wellbeing have been widely attained. However, bringing a product into existence

inevitably causes some sort of disturbance in the Earth’s natural systems. Furthermore,

product offerings are entangled with the role which they play in people’s lives, in

globalised supply chains and in an economic system that revolves strongly around

profitability targets and sales expansion. These and many other prevailing conditions act

as causal factors of environmental pressure.

From a time perspective, the causal factors of environmental pressure all lie in its past. The

environmental pressure can in turn be a cause of many other effects, which all lie in the

future.

Causality, i.e. the relationship between cause and effect spread across time and

geographical location, as instanced in the activity of producing a product and the

associated environmental pressure, is the theme of this thesis. More specifically, the thesis

examines some of many sustainability challenges in order to better understand the

operating cause-effect chains in society’s economic systems and identify some indicators

that reflect the temporal and spatial separation of extraction of materials, production, use

and waste generation. Without this broad understanding and indicators, producers have a

weak basis to environmentally improve their product offerings, consumers cannot adopt

consistent sustainable conducts, tools for decision-making support fail to provide robust


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4

improvement actions and policy makers do not have a solid foundation to design effective

environmental policies.

1.1 Aim and objectives

The overall aim of this thesis was to examine the mechanisms of predetermination

and occurrence of environmental pressure from products, considering the

temporal and spatial separation of extraction of materials, production, use and end-of-life.

The term ‘mechanism’ refers here to cause-effect chains of events, activities and conditions

that are part of society’s economic system (see Figure 1). The causal loop diagram (CLD)

technique and LCA-based footprinting were utilised to respectively illustrate and provide

some indicators about these mechanisms. The thesis consists of this cover essay and six

appended papers.

The main objectives of the studies presented in Papers I-VI were to:

i. Examine and illustrate operating causal chains in our consumer society (Papers I-III)

ii. Calculate environmental footprints of a range of consumer goods (Papers IV-V)

iii. Propose a planning framework to facilitate inclusion of unintended environmental

consequences when devising improvement actions (Paper VI).

Figure 1 positions these objectives and Papers I-VI vis-à-vis the DPSIR (Driver-Pressure-

State-Impact-Response) framework, which is commonly used to describe the relationship

between economic activity and impacts on the environment (Hertwich et al., 2010).

Probing objective (i), (a) the modes of system behaviour of improvement actions leading

to unintended environmental consequences and to decoupling of economic growth from

environmental impacts were analysed (Paper I); (b) a conceptual discussion on some

pervasive challenges to sustainability by design of electronic products was carried out,

where directions for improvements in the field were suggested (Paper II); and (c) sources of

environmental pressure falling outside the scope of LCA studies were investigated (Paper

III). Concerning objective (ii), (d) the water, carbon and energy footprint of two different

leather-making technologies was measured (Paper IV); and (e) methodology for estimating

the pre-consumer waste footprint of consumer goods was developed and tested on 10

consumer goods (Paper V). Lastly, as for objective (iii), (f) a planning framework that

✐ăIntroduction

___________________________________________________________________________

connects material flows and the socio

flows was proposed

Figure

capacity

polluting/toxic emissions and waste.

human health and

The term unint

thesis should be interpreted as a negative environmental externality that is an impact of an

economic/industrial activity on agents which have no stake/say in the transaction

involved.

negative impact on the environment

purposive

environmental

Introduction

___________________________________________________________________________


was proposed

Figure 1 – Papers I-

capacity for providing resources (e.g. energy, material, land, water) and absorbing anthropogenic


human health and the

wellbeing

The term unintended environmental consequences as used in Papers I, II and VI and in this



ved. Thus the concept of unintended environmental consequence describes a


purposive improvement

environmental or social)

Introduction

___________________________________________________________________________


was proposed, to address unintended environmental consequences

-VI in relation to

providing resources (e.g. energy, material, land, water) and absorbing anthropogenic


the resource provision capability of the Earth

wellbeing (diagram based on

ended environmental consequences as used in Papers I, II and VI and in this



the concept of unintended environmental consequence describes a


improvement action

social).

___________________________________________________________________________

connects material flows and the socio-

, to address unintended environmental consequences

relation to the DPSIR


polluting/toxic emissions and waste. Emissions and waste invariably cause

resource provision capability of the Earth

iagram based on Hertwich et al. (2010); Sinha (2014); Zhou et al. (2015)





negative impact on the environment, irrespective of whether it was intended or not

action at an overarching sustainability level (economic,

___________________________________________________________________________

5

-economic drivers that


the DPSIR framework.


Emissions and waste invariably cause

resource provision capability of the Earth

Hertwich et al. (2010); Sinha (2014); Zhou et al. (2015)





irrespective of whether it was intended or not

at an overarching sustainability level (economic,

The

___________________________________________________________________________

economic drivers that


All economic activities occur within the


Emissions and waste invariably cause

resource provision capability of the Earth’s natural system








The Karma of

___________________________________________________________________________

economic drivers that result in changes in these




Emissions and waste invariably cause degradation

’s natural systems, affecting in turn human








arma of Products

___________________________________________________________________________

result in changes in these

, to address unintended environmental consequences (Paper VI)



degradation of ecosystem quality,

, affecting in turn human

Hertwich et al. (2010); Sinha (2014); Zhou et al. (2015)).







roducts

___________________________________________________________________________

result in changes in these

(Paper VI).

All economic activities occur within the finite


ecosystem quality,

, affecting in turn human





irrespective of whether it was intended or not, by a



___________________________________________________________________________

6

1.2 Research trajectory, motivation and questions

I had heard from experienced mentors that research is not, and should never be, a nice,

smooth linear trajectory. This was particularly true of my PhD research, which was probably

an extreme case. One of the main contributing reasons was that my scholarship from

Erasmus Mundus Programme (EU-Brazil Startup) was not attached to any particular project

with clear-cut objectives and well-defined deliverables. I was fortunate to have the

freedom and privilege to have time to think and reflect (a lot!). As a result, this thesis makes

a stronger contribution to a way of thinking, which can hopefully lead to a positive actual

change in business practices, than to the solidification of new knowledge.

In this subsection, I try to summarise my own research trajectory and its circumstances,

which was not only filled with obstacles, turns and circles, making the journey more

challenging and interesting, but also with fulfilling discoveries and encounters with

extreme encouraging and supportive people, making the journey more bright,

meaningful, pleasant and enjoyable. During my discourse on the research trajectory, I also

touch upon the motives (reasons for the choices made) and research questions

(highlighted in italics) that guided and delineated the trajectory.

The work in this thesis comprised two complementary parts, qualitative and quantitative.

Papers I-III describe the qualitative part, where variations on the CLD technique were

utilised. Papers IV and V constitute the quantitative part, which used LCA-based

footprinting as a guiding method.

I began by trying to understand how and why environmental improvement actions often lead

to unintended environmental consequences. Paper I1 brought together different theories to

delineate the underlying system structure causing this system behaviour. The CLD

technique was utilised to explore and visualise: how incremental improvements in material

and energy efficiency can unintendedly cause consumption to increase; how this

consumption rebound effect is linked to generation of waste and pollution; and how this

1i.e. the paper’s co-authors and I.


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7

can give rise to social and negative externalities, economic inequalities and other broad

unintended consequences in society

The qualitative CLD results of Paper I indicated that the two strongest leverage points are

product innovation and consumption. Therefore the next step was to examine unintended

environmental consequences of product innovation by design and consumption of

electronic products in Paper II. The focus in the study was on electronic products, because

the consumption rebound effect is recognised to be most apparent and acute in this

sector (Galvin, 2015). The exploratory analysis in Paper II revealed essential developments

in certain areas that can assist design practice in preventing unintended environmental

consequences. Specifically, complementing LCA studies with analyses of unintended

environmental consequences helped lay the foundation for the framework proposed in

Paper VI.

Still examining the mechanisms that lead to unintended environmental consequences

from purposive improvement actions, Paper III considered the question of whether there

are variables which are not typically considered in quantitative environmental assessments

(LCA), but may have a significant influence upon environmental impacts through cause-effect

chains and feedback loops in product systems. The product systems of washing machines

and (internal combustion) passenger cars were selected as cases explicitly because: (a)

both product systems have dependent products embedded within them (the washing

machine, detergent and clothes, and the passenger car and fuel); (b) the use phase is the

greatest contributor to the life cycle environmental impacts of the embedded products.

The initial qualitative analysis in Papers I-III prompted investigation of indicators of

environmental pressure in Papers IV and V, in order to obtain information about the

increasing spatial and decreasing temporal separation of production, consumption and

waste generation.

Paper IV examined the water, energy and carbon footprint of two leather processing

techniques (chromium- and vegetable-based) in 12 tanneries in seven countries. This

research project emerged from a Master’s project investigating the carbon, water and

energy footprint of a pair of leather shoes manufactured in Mexico (Muñoz, 2013), which,


___________________________________________________________________________

8

unsurprisingly, identified leather as the most environmentally important material in the

shoes. Leather is a product used in many applications. According to FAO (2015), it is of high

economic significance in the global trade in agricultural commodities. More than 370

million pieces (over 6.6 million tons) of bovine hides and skins were produced world-wide

in 2014, in a steadily increasing trend since the 1900s (FAO, 2015). Moreover, leather

production is traditionally known to be characterised as a high resource intensity process.

For these reasons, it was selected for study in Paper IV. At that time, some famous brands

were (and still are) basing their advertising on the claim that vegetable-tanned leather is

more environmentally friendly than chromium-tanned leather. Paper IV sought to test this

claim.

The city of Leon, in the state of Guanajuato, is the centre of shoe and leather production in

Mexico and it is very interesting to reflect about how the cultural setting shaped the end

result of the project investigating this industry. The city is located in a semi-arid region, but

it is the home of hundreds of tanneries that require a large volume of water to process

leather. This has created an ingrained conflict between water use and water declaration to

the local authorities. Asking tanneries how much water they use was thus not a well-

received question. Based on this and other difficulties in collecting primary data, it was

decided to expand the study in Paper IV by inviting environmentally responsible tanneries

globally to participate (for more details, see the Methodology section of this thesis). There

were some opposing forces, but many well-intentioned people provided great help,

including extremely kind and knowledgeable people who I never met, which was very

heart-warming. In the end, the footprint analysis was carried out using very narrow system

boundaries and still produced a great variation in results, highlighting areas needing

further attention.

The aim in Paper V was to identify the waste types and quantities generated when producing

consumer goods and to devise a LCA-based waste footprint for that accounting. The reason

was that footprinting practice and the literature to date have extensively targeted carbon,

water and energy, while waste has received limited attention. Moreover, while most

consumers are conscious of the amount of waste that they place in the rubbish bin,

relatively few are aware of the waste generated during the course of producing the goods


___________________________________________________________________________

9

they consume (e.g. waste generated by extracting the materials, transporting, producing

fuels and electricity, manufacturing, etc.). The intention in Paper V was to use a rather

simplified metric to make a link between consumption and (hidden) waste and start a

dialogue with stakeholder groups about this link. This was exemplified by calculating the

waste footprint metric for 10 consumer goods – chicken, beef, cow’s milk, a laptop

computer, a smartphone, a pair of trousers, training clothes (T-shirt and shorts), a pair of

leather shoes, a milk carton and a newspaper, which were selected as representative

products widely used/consumed in daily life.

The work described in Paper V was performed within a project called ‘Total waste’ at the

Swedish Environmental Research Institute (IVL). A form of personal knowledge

accumulation converged to create this project. First, in research led by my PhD colleague

Jagdeep Singh2, in which I participated, it was found that the waste statistics in EUROSTAT3

do not accurately reflect the total waste generated due to consumption in developing

countries, where waste generation per capita is highest (Singh, Laurenti, Sinha & Frostell,

2014). As elegantly described by the editors of the journal in which that article was

published, the argument was that:

‘[…] the out-sourcing of product manufacture from developed to emerging and developing

countries over the last 20+ years also means that our extraction and manufacturing wastes are

now largely generated and need to be managed in those countries’ (Wilson & Velis, 2014

p.797).

The second research project that contributed to the development of a waste footprint

metric proposed novel methodology to evaluate sustainable retrofitting in existing

Swedish residential buildings (Wang, Laurenti & Holmberg, 2015). I was responsible for

calculating the so-called embodied carbon and embodied energy of different retrofit

options. The rationale was that the omission of these two metrics from the current

practices of eco-efficiency evaluation leads to underestimation of the potential

environmental benefits of modern retrofitting techniques.

2The study won second prize in the ISWA (International Solid Waste Association) publication award 2015.

3http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat


___________________________________________________________________________

10

The third and last main contribution to development of a waste footprint metric was a

conference organised by IVL called Avfall i nytt fokus 2014 (Waste in a new focus). Talks were

given by important players in the Swedish waste and recycling sector about resource-

efficient waste management and recycling, but my limited interpretation was that the

focus was still largely downstream from the point of consumption (as in EUROSTAT

statistics). The resulting project was funded by Avfall Sverige (Swedish Waste Management

and Recycling Association) and the IVL Foundation.

Paper VI reports on the way of thinking in my research group at the Division of Industrial

Ecology, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, developed following around roughly four

years of research and presented in the form of a framework. An analogy was drawn

between the origin of the term ‘management’4 and current management practices, in

order to argue that a fundamental limitation of the management philosophy that governs

eco-efficiency approaches is lack of understanding and visualisation of the mechanisms

(operating causal links and feedback loops) that result in unintended environmental

consequences. Thus unintended consequences distant in time and space from initial

interventions can occur when quality products are produced using a continuous

improvement philosophy with a strong focus on sales expansion and profitability targets.

The research group examining sustainable production and consumption consisted of

Professor Björn Frostell, PhD students Jagdeep Singh (who started PhD studies with me)

and Rajib Sinha (who started PhD studies about one year later). Our PhD research studies

were intertwined, but essentially Jagdeep examined a product’s life cycle from the waste

management (outflows from society’s economic system) perspective; I considered it from

the product design viewpoint, including the wide environmental implications of extracting

materials from the natural stock of the Earth and transforming them into useful products

by economic activities; and Rajib was the overall modeller (considering inflows, stock in

use and outflows). Our joint mental model representing society’s metabolism is

represented in Figure 2. The combination of individual previous research by Professor

Frostell, my fellow PhD students and myself and the two-part qualitative and quantitative

4‘Management’ in its modern sense is believed to have arisen jointly from the Renaissance Italian word

maneggiere and the French word manège, which both mean an enclosure for training horses and riders.

✐ăIntroduction

___________________________________________________________________________

approach utilised in Papers I

reported in Paper VI

doctoral

Figure

technically renewable stocks of the Earth’s natural systems. These inputs to society’s economic system are

transformed into useful

kept as stock in use; some are recycled after a useful lifetime.

deposited/emitted in various forms in the Earth’s natural system

Note that Paper

thesis5

sustainability domain

Lastly, I wanted to

my closing reflections

reader’s pard

5In Swedish and Finnish universities

Introduction

___________________________________________________________________________

approach utilised in Papers I

reported in Paper VI

doctoral theses produced

Figure 2 – Joint mental model of


transformed into useful



that Papers

(Laurenti, 2013)

sustainability domain

Lastly, I wanted to

closing reflections

reader’s pardon.

In Swedish and Finnish universities

Introduction

___________________________________________________________________________

approach utilised in Papers I-

reported in Paper VI. This framework

produced in the project

mental model of


transformed into useful products, infrastructure and capital goods by industrial activities; some mat



I and III, together with another manuscript, composed my licentiate

(Laurenti, 2013), which

sustainability domain for product design, product systems and stakeholder perspectives.

Lastly, I wanted to provide a philosophical end to this PhD trajectory and thesis

closing reflections go beyond the results presented

In Swedish and Finnish universities

___________________________________________________________________________

-V lay the foundation

framework

in the project.

mental model of the KTH research group. Materials and energy are taken from finite and


products, infrastructure and capital goods by industrial activities; some mat



III, together with another manuscript, composed my licentiate

, which examined

roduct design, product systems and stakeholder perspectives.

a philosophical end to this PhD trajectory and thesis

beyond the results presented

In Swedish and Finnish universities, a licentiate degree

___________________________________________________________________________

11

the foundations for

framework was used as guiding methodology

.

KTH research group. Materials and energy are taken from finite and






examined application of systems thinking within the



beyond the results presented

icentiate degree is recognised as a pre

The

___________________________________________________________________________

s for conceptualisation of th

used as guiding methodology




kept as stock in use; some are recycled after a useful lifetime. Sooner

deposited/emitted in various forms in the Earth’s natural system, for


application of systems thinking within the



beyond the results presented, an indulgence for which

recognised as a pre

The Karma of

___________________________________________________________________________

conceptualisation of th

used as guiding methodology




Sooner or later the materials are

forming anthropogenic sinks.





, an indulgence for which

recognised as a pre-doctoral degree

arma of Products

___________________________________________________________________________

conceptualisation of the framework

used as guiding methodology in all




or later the materials are

ming anthropogenic sinks.




a philosophical end to this PhD trajectory and thesis and hence

, an indulgence for which I beg the

doctoral degree.

roducts

___________________________________________________________________________

framework

in all three



products, infrastructure and capital goods by industrial activities; some materials are

or later the materials are

ming anthropogenic sinks.




and hence

I beg the

✐ă 12

✐ă 13

"[…] did you ever stop to think that you can’t leave for your job in the morning without being

dependent on most of the world? You get up in the morning and go to the bathroom and reach

over for the sponge, and that’s handed to you by a Pacific islander. You reach for a bar of soap,

and that’s given to you at the hands of a Frenchman. And then you go into the kitchen to drink

your coffee for the morning, and that’s poured into your cup by a South American. And maybe

you want tea: that’s poured into your cup by a Chinese. Or maybe you’re desirous of having

cocoa for breakfast, and that’s poured into your cup by a West African. And then you reach over

for your toast, and that’s given to you at the hands of an English-speaking farmer, not to

mention the baker. And before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on

more than half the world. This is the way our universe is structured; this is its interrelated

quality. We aren’t going to have peace on Earth until we recognize this basic fact of the

interrelated structure of all reality […]”

― Martin Luther King, Jr.

✐ă 14

✐ăProduct design and the (pre)determination and occurrence of environmental pressure

The Karma of Products

___________________________________________________________________________

15

2 . Product des ign and the

(pre )determinat ion and

occur rence o f env i ronmenta l

p ressure

There are many reference models that present the product design process at a level of

detail for engineering design. In practice, companies have their own tailored reference

model for their product design process, but generally speaking these models contain a

standardised structure of phases of project planning, conceptual design, detailed design

and production (Tang, 2014). These phases are subdivided in turn into tasks and activities

that can happen depending on the complexity of the product to be designed.

The product design process is treated in this thesis at a higher level of detail. It is

considered in a broader sense, from a life cycle and systems thinking perspective, allowing

harmonised analyses between the product design and the other life cycle stages

(production, consumption and waste management) of a product.

In this extended perspective, the product design process begins with perception of a gap

in user experience, leading to a plan for a new artefact and resulting in the production of

that artefact/product (see Figure 3a). The created plan contains specifications about design

choices, such as type of materials and manufacturing processes. These materials need to

be extracted and processed. They are then manufactured into the design product. The

products are packaged and distributed to consumers. Some products can be re-used by



___________________________________________________________________________

16

other consumers or purposes. When the products reach their end of life6, they are sent to

recycling or some other end-of-life strategy (e.g. incineration and landfilling). In addition,

all these life cycle stages require electricity and transport; electricity is commonly produced

by hydro, wind, solar, coal and nuclear power plants, while transport demands fuel which

also has to be produced, transported and distributed (see Figure 3c).

Therefore, most of the environmental impacts that a product potentially has in its entire

life cycle are defined during the design and development phase by the choice of materials

and location of production and manufacturing processes. For example, several design

choices define the fuel consumption and emissions per kilometre driven in the use phase;

choices of materials and the manufacturing plan have a high influence on the feasible

recycling options in the end-of-life phase; and the definition of power technology (petrol,

ethanol, diesel, electric, hybrid, etc.) determines the use phase and well-to-wheel

emissions (production and distribution of the fuel/electricity). Figure 3b represents this

dependency between product design and the other phases of a product’s life cycle.

Another important concept to understanding this thesis is waste generation upstream

from the point of consumption, i.e. the waste produced to produce a product. A product

sooner or later inevitably becomes waste. As previously stated (Section 1.2), while

consumers can be conscious about the amount of waste they place in litter and recycling

bins, relatively few are aware of the waste generated in the course of producing the goods

they consume. This pre-consumer waste is generally generated in commodity-supplying

(e.g. mining) and producing countries (such as the BRICS7) whilst generation of post-

consumer waste (discarded products) is highest8 in richer countries (e.g. Western Europe,

USA and Australia). Consumer awareness and attention are often focused on the post-

consumer waste, but it represents only a very small part of the total generated waste.

Figure 3c illustrates the life cycle of products emphasising the waste produced during raw

material extraction and production, manufacturing, electricity production, packaging and

end of life.

6Products can reach their end of life for many reasons, such as because they are worn out, broken or

technically or perceivably obsolete. 7Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

8From a consumption per capita perspective.

✐ă

Figure 3

and production

and downstream impa

graph

(diagram a

product and waste generation; g

flows; flows of materials to recovery are omitted (

a)

b)

c

–Relationship

and production, the two activities that deliver artefacts to address gaps in the user experience

and downstream impa

graph showing (pre)determination and generation of environmental impacts in a product's life cycle

iagram adapted and modified

product and waste generation; g


a)

)

c)

ship between product design and (pre)determination of environmental impacts. a

the two activities that deliver artefacts to address gaps in the user experience

and downstream impacts of a core system defined at the point of design (

(pre)determination and generation of environmental impacts in a product's life cycle

and modified

product and waste generation; grey a


between product design and (pre)determination of environmental impacts. a


cts of a core system defined at the point of design (


and modified from Rebitzer (2002)

rey arrows represent flows of materials; orange arrows represent energy


17





Rebitzer (2002) and

rrows represent flows of materials; orange arrows represent energy

flows; flows of materials to recovery are omitted (diagram from





and Rebitzer et al. (2004)


iagram from Laurent



cts of a core system defined at the point of design (diagram from Paper II).


Rebitzer et al. (2004)). c) life cycle stages of


Laurenti and Stenmarck (2015


the two activities that deliver artefacts to address gaps in the user experience, as upstream

iagram from Paper II). Fi


life cycle stages of


i and Stenmarck (2015

between product design and (pre)determination of environmental impacts. a) Design

upstream

Figure 3b)


life cycle stages of a


i and Stenmarck (2015)).



___________________________________________________________________

18

As product design (pre)determines most of the potential environmental impacts that a

product will have during its life, the product design phase has the highest potential of all

phases to reduce these potential impacts. In order to achieve this full potential,

information about (pre)determination of possible environmental impacts should be

available to product designers and engineers. The first part of this thesis (Papers I-III)

qualitatively scrutinised the relationship between product design and (pre)determination

of environmental impacts. For example, the possibilities of visualising cause and effect

chains, often distant in time and geographical location, that lead to environmental impacts

were explored with the aid of the CLD technique. The second part of the thesis (Papers IV-

V) attempted to produce information about the generation of environmental impacts,

utilising the concept of LCA-based footprinting.

✐ă 19

“If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?”

― Albert Einstein

✐ă 20

✐ăMethodology The Karma of Products

___________________________________________________________________________

21

3 . Methodology

This section presents a general description of the two main methods utilised in Papers I-VI

and a summary of how these methods were applied in each paper. For full details, see the

individual papers.

3.1 Causal loop diagram

Causal loop diagram is a systems modelling technique utilised to qualitatively explore

variables and interrelationships of a system of interest (Andersen, Vennix, Richardson &

Rouwette, 2007). A CLD represents causal links between variables, polarities of the links

and feedback loops (Lane, 2008). The variables are connected by arrows representing the

causal influences among the variables (Sterman, 2000). Each arrow is assigned a polarity,

either positive (+) or negative (–), to designate how the effect (at the arrow’s point)

changes when the cause (at the arrow’s tail) changes (Schaffernicht, 2010; Vennix, 1996).

As an illustration, Figure 4 shows variables connected by a causal link with a polarity for the

relationship between global average temperature, area of Arctic Sea ice and albedo

(reflected radiation).

Figure 4 - Examples of variables connected by a causal link with a polarity (diagram adapted from Bossel

(2007)).


___________________________________________________________________________

22

A causal link with a negative link polarity means that the coupled variables change in

opposite directions (Vennix, 1996). In other words, a negative link means that “if the cause

increases, the effect decreases below what it would otherwise have been, and if the cause

decreases, the effect increases above what it would otherwise have been” (Sterman, 2000,

p.139). In Figure 4, the negative link polarity indicates that if temperature increases, ice

area decreases below what it would otherwise have been.

A positive link signifies that the connected variables may change in the same direction

(Vennix, 1996). That is to say, “if the cause increases, the effect increases above what it

would otherwise have been, and if the cause decreases, the effect decreases below what it

would otherwise have been” (Sterman, 2000, p.139). In the example in Figure 4, the

positive link polarity symbolises that as the ice area decreases, the reflection of radiation

(albedo) decreases below what it would otherwise have been.

Feedback loops form the basis for qualitative analysis with the help of CLDs

(Wolstenholme & Coyle, 1983). Feedback loops occur when the effect of a change

propagates around the variables in a system through cause and effect chains, and evokes a

response (“feedback”) to the original change (Meadows, 2008). This response can either

reinforce or oppose the original perturbation. If it reinforces the original change, it is a

reinforcing loop. If it opposes the original change, it is a balancing loop. Reinforcing

feedback loops generate (exponential) growth or self-reinforcing decline, amplify

deviations and reinforce change (Figure 5a). Pure exponential growth has the remarkable

property of a constant doubling in time, i.e. the state of the system doubles in a fixed

period of time, no matter how large. Yet, balancing feedback loops seek balance,

equilibrium and stasis (Sterman, 2000). Balancing feedback loops act to bring the state of

the system in line with a goal or desired state (Figure 5b).


___________________________________________________________________________

23

Figure 5 – a) Exponential growth and b) goal seeking modes of behaviour in dynamic systems (diagram

adapted from Sterman (2000, p.108)).

In a CLD, the important loops are highlighted by a loop identifier, which shows whether

the loop is a reinforcing (“R”) or balancing (“B”) feedback.

Figure 4 exemplifies reinforcing with the cause-effect chain for global warming (or global

cooling during the ice age): As the albedo decreases, the absorption of solar radiation

increases. This increase in the absorption of solar radiation causes, in turn, the global

average temperature to increase even further (see Figure 6). This is an example of the

reinforcing feedback loop for global warming. The four variables are connected in a

structure which amplifies the original perturbation: if the global average temperature

increases (for instance due to an increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the

atmosphere), this trend will be amplified via feedback in the direction of a further

temperature increase (Bossel, 2007).

For the purpose of exemplifying the concept of a balancing feedback loop (left-hand part

of Figure 6), consider the following scenario: if temperature rises above a desirable level,

policies and actions to reduce anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) are

developed (e.g. reforestation, low-carbon energy technologies, carbon capture and

storage). When they are implemented, the average temperature will drop down to a

desirable level. This is the structure of a balancing feedback loop, i.e. if the temperature

increases, the mitigation actions increase above what they would otherwise have been.


___________________________________________________________________________

24

Figure 6 – Example of balancing and reinforcing feedback loops (diagram adapted and modified from Bossel

(2007)).

It is important to note that link and loop polarities do not describe the behaviour of the

variables, but rather the structure of the system. Link and loop polarities describe what

would have occurred if there had been a change in the system.

3.1.1 How CLD was applied in Paper I

Paper I was based on the premise that the behaviour of a system arises from its structure.

The intention in Paper I was to build, step-by-step, the structure of the following modes of

behaviour:

• Incremental improvements in material and energy efficiency causing material

consumption to increase (consumption rebound effects)

• Consumption rebound effects causing greater generation of waste and pollution

• Waste and pollution causing social and environmental negative externalities,

economic inequalities and other broad unintended consequences in society to

increase.

These representations were then coupled to two different modes of behaviour, namely

product-service systems (PSS)9 and environmental policy instruments10. The synergistic

effect from their combination was treated as potentially capable of creating traction to

decouple economic growth from consumption and environmental impacts (first group of

modes of behaviour).

9Basically PSS is a concept to shift the business model from selling a manufactured product to offering a

combination of products and services (utility and function) that satisfy consumers’ intentions.

10e.g. Pigovian tax (price on pollution), income tax (levy), company tax, feebates and rebates.


___________________________________________________________________________

25

These modes of behaviour were assumed to be valid only in the domain of physical

consumer goods (electronics, household equipment, passenger car, etc.).

Knowledge and theories from different fields were brought together to build a conceptual

systems model and the CLD technique was used to represent the feedback structure. The

CLDs were built on the basis of iterative literature reviews and discussions and feedback

rounds within the author group.

3.1.2 How CLD was applied in Paper II

As stated in the Introduction section of this thesis, novel products and technologies can

create consumer needs that did not previously exist. The latter is particularly evident for

electronic products. Once incorporated into lives and routines, they are difficult to manage

without. Paper II used a simplification of the CLD technique to graphically link the product

design process and the other life cycle stages of a product with some unintended

environmental consequences, representing cause and effect chains distant in time and

geographical location. The study examined some pervasive challenges to sustainability in

design of electronic products, namely: (i) product and consumption redundancies; (i)

embodied environmental and social impacts occurring distant in time and space from the

point of consumption; and (iii) production and consumption dynamics.

3.1.3 How CLD was applied in Paper III

In Paper III, a literature survey, workshops and individual interviews with experts served

the purpose of identifying variables which may not typically be considered in LCA studies,

but may have a significant influence upon environmental impacts through closed causal

chains in product systems. Household washing machines and conventional passenger cars

(using gasoline or diesel) were chosen as case studies. First, a literature survey was

conducted for each case study to inspect the variables, system boundaries and functional

units that are commonly adopted in LCA studies on washing machines and passenger cars.

Seven LCA studies were selected and analysed for each product system.

Two parallel workshops were then organised to build a first version of CLDs. The workshop

on washing machines was organised at the Polytechnic of Turin (Italy) and involved five


___________________________________________________________________________

26

participants from the Department of Architecture and Design with backgrounds in

industrial design and systemic design. The workshop on conventional passenger cars took

place at KTH and involved five expert participants with backgrounds in environmental

economics, transport and LCA.

The purpose of the workshops was to gain a first view of:

• The larger system in which the product is embedded

• Variables that may influence the environmental performance of the product

through cause-effect links within that system

• The nature (positive or negative) of the relationships between these variables, in

order to get a better understanding of how the chosen variables may affect the

environmental impact of the studied product through cause-effect links.

During the two workshops, participants were asked to brainstorm variables related to

environmental impacts of the two product systems and to discuss their connections.

However, due to time constraints during the workshops, only a preliminary version of the

CLDs was developed for each of the product systems. There were still missing links

between variables, even important variables in the systems.

The CLDs were further developed by experts together with the authors of Paper III using

individual interviews to advance the level of completion. Three interviews were conducted

for each case. In each interview the first version of the CLD was presented to the experts

and variables, links and their polarity were discussed. Special attention was given to

naming the variables. The experts and the interviewees verified the consistency of the

cause-effect linkages and the relevance/importance of each variable to the system

represented in the diagram. Final versions of the CLD were built with the inputs from the

interviews.

This process of conducting the workshops and building the CLD followed the group

model-building (GMB) method described in Vennix (1996, pp.174-182).


___________________________________________________________________________

27

3.2 LCA-based footprint

The LCA method has been widely applied in industry and research for identifying

opportunities to measure and improve the environmental performance of products at

various stages of their life cycle. LCA addresses potential environmental impacts

throughout a product's life cycle from raw material extraction through production,

manufacture, use, end-of-life treatment, recycling and final disposal (i.e. cradle-to-grave).

The results of LCA can assist decision makers at several levels (e.g. managers, product

designers) in strategic planning, material selection and marketing (e.g. informing

consumers about the environmental performance of products) (ISO, 2006).

The standard methodological framework of LCA has four iterative phases (see Figure 7:

i. Goal and scope definition phase.

ii. Life cycle inventory (LCI) analysis phase.

iii. Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) phase.

iv. Interpretation phase.

Based on the functional unit11 and system boundaries12 set in the goal and scope definition

phase, inputs (materials, water and energy) and outputs (emissions13, waste, co-products

and product) are compiled for each of the relevant processes/activities occurring in the life

cycle stages of the product (LCI analysis phase). The results from the LCI analysis phase are

then assigned to potential environmental impacts14 using characterisation factors (LCIA

11

Functional unit is defined as “quantified performance of a product system for use as a reference unit” (ISO,

2006, p. 4).

12The system boundaries are generally symbolised in a graphical representation showing which life cycle

stages/processes are part of the LCA analysis being carried out.

13 Solid, liquid and gaseous emissions to the air, water and soil.

14Global warming, acidification, eutrophication, cumulative energy demand, toxicity and resource depletion.


___________________________________________________________________________

28

phase)15. Throughout the interpretation phase, conclusions and recommendations for

improvement actions are made based on the findings of the LCI analysis and LCIA phases.

The environmental footprint concept (such as carbon, water and energy footprint) seems

to attract more consumer attention than complicated LCA results. Footprints have been

used for the purpose of communicating and raising consumer awareness about the

consequences that their consumption choices have on the environment. In reality, behind

these apparently simpler concepts, the metrics of product environmental footprints are

calculated based on the LCA framework. Figure 7 shows the LCA-based footprint

delineated from the LCA framework.

Figure 7 – Framework for LCA-based footprinting in relation to the LCA framework (diagram modified from

ISO (2006)).

15

For instance, in the use phase of a passenger car, diesel is combusted emitting carbon dioxide, among other

gases, to the atmosphere. The amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the combustion is assigned to global

warming potential.


___________________________________________________________________________

29

3.2.1 How LCA-based footprint was applied in Paper IV

Within the apparel and footwear industry, some famous brands have recently basing their

advertising on the claim that an alternative type of leather (vegetable-tanned16) is more

environmentally friendly than the traditional chromium-tanned leather17. However, there is

a lack of scientific research assessing and comparing the technologies of vegetable- and

chromium-tanning in a wider context than the toxicity of chromium18. To fill this gap, the

goal of the footprint study in Paper IV was to obtain primary data on energy, water and

GHG emissions (expressed as CO2 equivalents), as key indicators of environmental

pressure, across the main process steps of leather making, with the focus on providing

metrics for two types of leather processing technologies (vegetable and chromium) to

intermediate and final consumers.

Figure 8 illustrates the system boundaries of the LCA-based footprint study on leather

processing technologies. The system boundaries represent the unit processes, inputs and

outputs that were included in footprint calculation. The functional unit adopted was one

square metre (1 m2) of leather.

16

Vegetable leather is tanned using tanning agents leached from tree bark, wood, leaves, fruits and roots

(Kanth, Venba, Madhan, Chandrababu & Sadulla, 2009).

17Over 6.6 million tons of bovine hides and skins were produced in the world in 2014 (FAO, 2015); most (about

90%) of the leathers manufactured in the world nowadays are predominantly based on chromium salts

(Hedberg, Lidén & Odnevall Wallinder, 2015; Kanth et al., 2009).

18For a summary of the rationale and environmental problems in leather processing, see Thanikaivelan, Rao,

Nair and Ramasami (2005).


___________________________________________________________________________

30

Figure 8 – System boundaries of the footprint study on leather processing technologies (diagram from Paper

IV). The upstream processes of agriculture, animal farming, slaughtering, chemical production and water

extraction and delivery and the downstream processes of solid waste and wastewater treatment, leather

goods manufacturing, use phase and end of life were not included in the scope of the study.

The data collection phase and call to participate in the study took place in 2014. About 200

tanneries certified by the Leather Working Group (LWG) were invited by personalised

individual e-mails to participate. Invitations were also published in specialist online

magazines and newsletters19 and on social networking websites20. There were no costs to

the participating tanneries. Potential participants were informed that information such as

tannery names would remain confidential. Acceptance was rewarded with early privileged

access to the project results.

An Excel-based data questionnaire was developed based on the LWG auditing protocol

(LWG, 2014), assessed by five leather experts and validated in three trials. The validated

data collection form was then sent to the tanneries that accepted the invitation to

19

ILM International Leather Maker (www.internationalleathermaker.com), LeatherNaturally!

(www.leathernaturally.org)

20Linkedin groups

Cattle farming

Slaughtering

Leather making

process

Leather goods

manufacturing

Use

End of life

Chemical

production

Electricity/fuel

production

Finished leather

WATER

Solid waste and

wastewater

Leather goods

Discarded leather goods

By-productsENERGY

GHG EMISSIONS from

fuel combustion

Chemicals

Cows

Raw hides and skins

GHG EMISSIONS from

energy/fuel production

SYSTEM BOUNDARIES

Solid waste and

wastewater treatment

AgricultureAnimal feed

Water extraction

and delivery

Other inputs from

the environment

Other inputs to the

environment


___________________________________________________________________________

31

participate. The questions asked referred to their water, electricity21 and thermal energy22

usage for processing a given hide/leather input quantity (raw hide, tanned hide or crust

hide) in a certain period of time of tannery operation23. Participants were also asked to

specify the source of thermal energy (natural gas, fuel oil, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG),

wood and biomass other than wood). GaBi software and the Thinkstep (previously PE

International) Professional database were used to model and calculate the GHG

emissions24 (CO2 eq.) from electricity and thermal energy use.

3.2.2 How LCA-based footprint was applied in Paper V

Paper V adopted the LCA framework to account for the waste generated upstream from

the point of consumption of 10 selected products: chicken, beef, milk, a laptop computer, a

smartphone, a pair of trousers, training clothes, a pair of leather shoes, a milk carton and a

newspaper. The study can be seen as a screening LCI in the sense that easily available

generic data about the selected products were used.

The aim was not simply to account for the total waste generated to produce a product, but

to investigate intermediate hotspots25 and types of waste generated. In order to undertake

this task, a ‘cradle-to-gate’26 analysis was adopted. Evidently, the production of a product

starts at its cradle and the materials, undertaking various transformations, flow down to

and end at the factory gate (before being shipped to retailers or consumers). However, the

analysis started looking at the product at the factory gate (downstream gate) and went

upstream, through the intermediate transformations until the cradle of the product (i.e.

the materials from which the product is made).

21

For operating machinery and vessels, to produce compressed air and for lighting.

22For drying leather in different process phases, to heat water to temperatures needed for chemical processes,

and to control the temperature of the working environment.

23Data given refer to the year 2014.

24The CO2 eq. emissions were calculated with the indicator CML2001 - Apr. 2013, Global Warming Potential,

excl biogenic carbon (GWP 100 years).

25Stages, processes, activities or materials that contribute most to a certain metric which in our case was waste.

26The term ‘gate’ is an analogy to a factory gate, meaning that a product has been produced and is at the

factory gate ready to be transported to retailers/consumers; likewise, the term ‘cradle’ signifies the place

where the product started, namely at the extraction of the raw materials.

✐ăMethodology

______________________________________________________________

The intention was not to introduce any new ter

‘gate-to

procedure taken.

selected products

of producing the products was

cradle of their materials.

of the analysis

Figure 9

generic name for the cradle (where a product starts)

material

right-hand side). This finished product ca

(e.g. computer) or a product ready to be used by the final consumer (e.g. clothes). The Production of

material, Refining and Mining

The main source of data for the material composition and LCI was the ecoinvent v3.1

database

from technical reports,

used to manipulate, examine and extract data from ecoinvent

waste footprint models.

of data for each of the

Paper V

27

www.gabi

Methodology

______________________________________________________________

intention was not to introduce any new ter

to-gate’ are well

procedure taken.

selected products


cradle of their materials.

analysis in Paper V

9 – Representation of the cradle


aterial. The numbers 1, 2, 3 denote the diverse materials that compose a finished product (first box on the

hand side). This finished product ca


material, Refining and Mining


database (Ecoinvent, 2014)

from technical reports,

ed to manipulate, examine and extract data from ecoinvent

waste footprint models.

of data for each of the

Paper V.

www.gabi-software.com/

Methodology

______________________________________________________________


gate’ are well established

procedure taken. First, a functional unit and the material composition for each of the

were defined


cradle of their materials. Figure

in Paper V.

Representation of the cradle


. The numbers 1, 2, 3 denote the diverse materials that compose a finished product (first box on the

hand side). This finished product ca


material, Refining and Mining boxes


(Ecoinvent, 2014). W

from technical reports, academic


waste footprint models. The functional unit, main parts/material/processes and the source

of data for each of the 10 products

software.com/

______________________________________________________________


established, but rather to provide a faithful description of the

a functional unit and the material composition for each of the

defined. Then, the total amount of waste generated in the course

of producing the products was examined

Figure 9 illustrates this concept of cradle

Representation of the cradle-to-gate analysis



hand side). This finished product can be a component/part/assembly that composes a complex product


boxes represent generic transformations

composes the product is subjected.


When not available in

academic theses and scientific articles.


he functional unit, main parts/material/processes and the source

products analysed

______________________________________________________________

32

intention was not to introduce any new terminology, as the terms ‘cradle

, but rather to provide a faithful description of the


, the total amount of waste generated in the course

examined from the gate of the selected products to the

illustrates this concept of cradle

gate analysis under

generic name for the cradle (where a product starts); the name


n be a component/part/assembly that composes a complex product


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______________________________________________________________

minology, as the terms ‘cradle




from the gate of the selected products to the

illustrates this concept of cradle

undertaken. Ore extraction

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represent generic transformations to which

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the ecoinvent database

theses and scientific articles.



are listed in the supporting information

The Karma of

______________________________________________________________

minology, as the terms ‘cradle





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to which each finishe


ecoinvent database

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ed to manipulate, examine and extract data from ecoinvent v3.1 datasets and build the


the supporting information

arma of Products

___________________________________________________________________________

minology, as the terms ‘cradle-to-gate’ and





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datasets and build the


the supporting information to


___________________________________________________________________________

33

There are several methodological limitations concerning the data, such as availability,

reliability, consistency, declaration, format and representation. Therefore, the waste

footprint values presented in Paper V should be seen as only an indicative rather than a

definite picture of reality. This study was a preliminary attempt (screening) to examine

quantities, types, sources and reasons of waste generated in the course of producing

consumer goods.

3.3 Method in Paper VI

Previous work by our research group (Frostell, 2013; Laurenti, 2013; Singh, 2013; Sinha,

2014) was unified and synthesised to develop the framework presented in Paper VI. The

proposed framework consists of a set of planning stages to be followed prior to

developing improvement actions. The refinement of these planning stages followed an

iterative process between conceptualising the framework, illustrating it and learning from

it. The conceptualisation work sought to answer ‘what-ought-to-be’ and the illustrating

stage sought to answer ‘how-it-should-be’. Then based on lessons learnt from the

illustration stage, the planning stages were refined accordingly. This iterative process is

shown in Figure 10.


___________________________________________________________________________

34

Figure 10 – Methodology used for developing the proposed framework (diagram from Paper VI).

The case chosen to illustrate the proposed framework was that of planning for closing

material flow loops in the global mobile phone product system. In this example, the focus

was on resource depletion (an unintended environmental consequence of the current

linear resource management model ‘extract–produce–use–dispose’) and transition to a

circular resource management model (where materials circulate in the economy by re-use,

remanufacture and recycling). The technique used was the stock and flow diagram, which

is a step further than a CLD towards quantification, modelling and simulation.

✐ă 35

“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society

gathers wisdom.”

― Isaac Asimov

✐ă 36

✐ăResults The Karma of Products

___________________________________________________________________________

37

4 . Key resu l t s o f Papers I -V I

This chapter summarises the results obtained in Papers I-VI. For full details of the results,

see the respective papers.

4.1 Paper I

Rafael Laurenti, Jagdeep Singh, Rajib Sinha, Josepha Potting, Björn Frostell, 2015. Unintended environmental consequences of improvement actions: A qualitative analysis of systems’ structure and behavior. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, online. doi: 10.1002/sres.2330.

In Paper I, two distinct groups of modes of systems behaviour were coupled in a CLD. The

first group consisted of modes of behaviour of unintended environmental consequences

of purposive improvement actions. These were: incremental improvements in material and

energy efficiency causing consumption to increase; consumption rebound effects linked to

generation of waste and pollution; and waste and pollution begetting social and

environmental negative externalities, economic inequalities and other broad negative

environmental and social impacts such as ripple effects.

The second group consisted of types of systems intervention: wide-scale implementation

of product-service systems (PSS) and environmental policy instruments. PSS is often

advocated by the emerging circular economy concept as a promising way to decouple

economic growth and consumption from environmental impacts. The concept of

providing incentives for industries to internalise the full costs of their activities with

environmental policy instruments is the core of the solid discipline of ecological

economics.


___________________________________________________________________________

38

Figure 11 shows the feedback loop structure of the two groups of modes of systems

behaviour created in Paper I. The feedback loops are explained in Table 1.

Figure 11 – Feedback loops: R1 Engine of Growth, R2 Consumption Rebound Effect, R3 Externalities-

Consumer Costs, R4 New Growth, R5 Circularity and B1 Internalising Externalities.

Table 1 – Description of the feedback structure and main sources of evidence

Description of feedback structure Main sources of evidence

R1 Engine of Growth: incremental innovation28 leads to shorter product lifespans (planned and perceived obsolescence), which in turn leads to more consumption; greater consumption fosters economic growth; more economic growth means that more financial capital is available to reinvest in incremental growth.

(Chapman, 2009; Guiltinan, 2009; Jackson, 2009; Leonard, 2010; Partidario, Vicente & Belchior, 2010)

R2 Consumption rebound effect: lower per-unit energy or material requirements translates into lower consumer costs, which in turn increase overall consumption; efficiency gains repeatedly cancelled out or even surpassed by increased consumption.

(Alcott, 2005; Dahmus, 2014; Duarte, Mainar & Sánchez-Chóliz, 2013;. Hertwich, 2005; Jalas, 2002; Maxwell et al., 2011; Polimeni, Mayumi

28

In contrast to a disruptive change that leads to a radical transformation in the product (for example, a new

technology) and in several parts of a system in a relatively short time, incremental innovation means

progressive or successive change over time in a product platform that does not necessarily need

modification/adjustment in other parts of the system.


___________________________________________________________________________

39

Giampietro, & Alcott, 2008; Worldwatch, 2004; Thomas & Azevedo, 2013a, 2013b)

R3 Externalities-Consumer Costs: in the presence of negative externalities29, the free market trades products more than it would otherwise have done. In these cases, companies can sell their products more cheaply, as an important part of the true costs of production is externalised.

(Bilancini & D'Alessandro, 2012; Bithas, 2011; Costanza et al., 1997; van den Bergh, 2010; Zerlentes, Hewings & Weiler, 2009)

R4 New Growth: in PSS profits are generated by the unit-of-service delivered (pay-per-use), in contrast to product-orientated business models where companies get paid by the number of units sold. PSS then leads to a systems innovation where significant changes in consumption patterns, business models, physical infrastructure and product design are needed. The more those changes occur, the more PSS spreads and the more consumer intentions are satisfied in this way. Consequently, economic growth is fostered whilst pollution is decreased. The marginal economic growth can then be reinvested in more systems innovation.

(Halme, Anttonen Kuisma, Kontoniemi & Heino, 2007; Mont, 2000; Mylan, 2014; Reim, Parida & Örtqvist, 2014; Tukker, 2014)

R5 Circularity: the diffusion of PSS also increases behaviours such as reuse, repurpose, remanufacture and recycling of goods. These new businesses again increase economic growth, which can be reinvested in more systems innovation.

(Halme et al., 2007; Mont, 2000; Mylan, 2014; Reim et al., 2014; Tukker, 2014)

B1 Internalising Externalities: in an economic system that internalises negative externalities, waste and pollution would increase consumer costs, which would then lead to less consumption. All else being equal, a lower level of consumption would lead to less waste and pollution. A balancing feedback loop between waste/pollution and consumer costs would then be operating.

(Amalric, 2006; Jaffe, Newell, & Stavins, 2005; Mandell, 2009; McHenry, 2009; Pigou, 2009)

The reinforcing feedback loop Engine of Growth (R1) is the core of two other feedback

loops in the conceptual model in Figure 11 (i.e. R2 Consumption Rebound Effect and R3

Externalities-Consumer Costs). The variable consumption connects the three feedback

loops, and the variable incremental innovation drives R1 and R2. For these reasons,

consumption and incremental innovation are the highest leverage points in this complex

system.

29

A negative externality occurs when an activity or transaction by some party causes an unintended loss in

welfare to another party, and no compensation for the change in welfare occurs.


___________________________________________________________________________

40

The paradigm shift from consuming products to using services (PSS) has the potential to

create new reinforcing feedback loops capable of lessening R1, R2 and R3. In this new

structure, satisfying consumers’ intentions and circulating materials by reuse, repurpose,

remanufacture and recycle would be accompanied by economic growth. This new growth

would in turn be reinvested in more systems innovation, reinforcing the loops New Growth

(R4) and Circularity (R5).

Policy instruments for internalising negative externalities are expected to create a

balancing feedback loop (B1). This balancing loop would bring waste and pollution down

to a desirable level, weakening the strength of R3 and hence fostering a regime shift

towards PSS.

This combination of PSS and environmental policy instruments for decoupling economic

growth from consumption and environmental impacts may be seen as a transition

pathway from a linear economy to a circular economy.

4.2 Paper II

Rafael Laurenti, Rajib Sinha, Jagdeep Singh, Björn Frostell, 2015. Some pervasive challenges to sustainability by design of electronic products – a conceptual discussion. Journal of Cleaner Production 108 (Part A), 281-288. doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.08.041.

After the structure of modes of behaviours of unintended environmental consequences of

purposive improvement actions had been created, in order to identify essential

developments in certain areas that can assist design practice in preventing unintended

environmental consequences Paper II examined some pervasive challenges to

sustainability by design of electronic products, namely: (i) redundant consumption; (i)

embodied environmental and social impacts; and (iii) liberation of scarce production or

consumption factors – such as money, time, space, technology – that can encourage

increasing consumption.

Figure 12 shows the causal chains between product design, prevailing conditions and

unintended consequences that were within the scope of Paper II.


___________________________________________________________________________

41

Figure 12 - Examples of prevailing conditions and unintended environmental consequences connected to

product life cycle stages that can occur at multiple temporal and spatial scales. The slimmer arrows represent

cause and effect chains and the thicker arrows material and information flows between a product’s life cycle

stages. (Diagram adapted from Paper II).

A prominent discussion point in Paper II was that the occurrence of environmental

pressure depends essentially on the dynamics of two contributing causal factors:

consumption and investment. Consumption dynamics concern how product offerings

encourage consumers to spend their money and time. If these are spent on new products

and activities that carry higher impact intensities, the overall burdens are clearly increased.

Alternatively, if money and time are spent on products and activities that carry lower

impact intensities, then environmental gains are obtained. Investment dynamics concern

how those providing the product offerings reinvest the profits from sales. Due to these

consumption and investment dynamics, directing consumers to buy more expensive

products in order to restrict their availability of money and avoid increased consumption

will not necessarily decrease the total negative burden of consumption.


___________________________________________________________________________

42

4.3 Paper III

Rafael Laurenti, David Lazarevic, Sofia Poulikidou, Valeria Montrucchio, Luigi Bistagnino, Björn Frostell, 2014. Group model-building to identify potential sources of environmental impacts outside the scope of LCA studies. Journal of Cleaner Production 72, 96-109. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.03.001

Paper III utilised the CLD technique to identify variables which may not typically be

identified and considered in LCA studies, but may have a significant influence upon

environmental impacts through cause-effect chains. Figure 13 shows the CLDs built for (a)

a household washing machine and (b) a conventional passenger car product system. The

variables marked with an asterisk were identified in the scope of the LCA studies of

washing machines and cars; those without an asterisk were identified from the GMB

workshops and individual interviews.


___________________________________________________________________________

43

Figure 13 – (a) Causal link diagram (CLD) of a washing machine product system and (b) CLD of a passenger car

product system. There may be time delays on many of these links. The variables marked with an asterisk

were identified in the LCA studies.

a)

b)


___________________________________________________________________________

44

The CLDs also indicated an interesting pattern between the LCA studies and the results

from the GMB process. Whilst the scope of the LCA studies mainly covered physical

structure, the GMB reached variables pertaining to both physical and behavioural structure

as important to assess the environmental impacts of the product systems. Variables of the

physical structure related to aspects of the products themselves (washing machine/car)

and background infrastructure (technology developments, design improvements, level of

air/toxicity/noise pollution, energy use, etc.), whereas the behavioural structure concerned

the decision rules used by the people in the product system (government policies and

taxes, pro-environmental attitudes, market demand, economic growth, etc.). The latter

group of variables seemed particularly important to assist in structuring the system of

which the two products studied formed part.

For instance, in the case study on passenger cars, the environmental impact per passenger

car over its lifetime or per km travelled (functional units usually considered) can be directly

influenced by ‘material recovery’, ‘vehicle lifespan/obsolescence’, ‘reuse’ and ‘direct vehicle

energy use’ (variables identified in the LCA studies). As shown in Figure 13b, these

variables can be influenced by ‘vehicle design development’, which in turn is affected by

‘government policies and taxes’ via ‘vehicle technology development’. Moreover, ‘material

recovery’ and ‘reuse’ are affected by ‘recovered parts and materials market demand and

infrastructure’. This clear example of variables pertaining to a behavioural structure

interacting as cause-effect linkages to influence the environmental impacts of cars can be

interpreted as: more ‘public transport development’ and less ‘car ownership’ will lead to

decreasing ‘vehicle travel’; less ‘vehicle travel’ means less ‘traffic volume’, causing the

‘direct energy use to decrease’.

In conclusion, therefore, the results of Paper III indicate that there is a behavioural structure

interacting with the physical structure (considered by LCAs) that needs to be taken into

account in environmental assessments. In this sense, the CLD technique appears to be a

useful way to connect quantitative assessment with qualitative analysis.


___________________________________________________________________________

45

4.4 Paper IV

Rafael Laurenti, Michael Redwood, Rita Puig, Björn Frostell, 2015. Measuring the environmental footprint of leather processing technologies in selected countries. Submitted manuscript.

Paper IV measured and compared the carbon, water and energy footprint of vegetable and

chromium leather processing technology in 12 tanneries (coded A-L) in seven countries.

Table 2 presents the tannery code, country, respective category (position in leather-

making value chain) and type of tanning technology used for each of these tanneries.

Table 2 – List of participating tanneries showing tannery code, country, category (position in leather-making

value chain) and tanning technology.

Code Country Category Tanning

technology

A Spain Raw hide to finished leather Chromium

B Taiwan Raw hide to finished leather Chromium

C Australia Raw hide to finished leather Chromium

D Argentina Raw hide to finished leather Vegetable

E Spain Raw hide to finished leather Vegetable

F Brazil Raw hide to crust hide Vegetable

G Brazil Raw hide to tanned hide Chromium

H China Tanned hide to finished leather Chromium

I Mexico Tanned hide to finished leather Chromium

J Mexico Tanned hide to finished leather Chromium

K Brazil Tanned hide to finished leather Chromium

L Brazil Crust hide to finished leather Chromium

The water, energy and carbon footprint of the participating tanneries per square metre of

hide/leather processed is shown in Figure 14. Comparisons should only be made within

categories and bearing in mind that the tanneries are located in different countries and

use different energy sources.


___________________________________________________________________________

46

Figure 14 – Water, energy and carbon footprint of the 12 participating tanneries (A-L); values are expressed

per square metre of hide/leather processed.

The performance of vegetable and chromium tanning appeared to be very similar. Yet,

owing to the major limitation of very few data being available (especially on vegetable

tanning), no definite conclusion could be drawn about differences in the water, energy

and carbon footprint between chromium and vegetable leather. An example of conflicting

results can be seen in the category ‘raw hide to finished leather’ (A-E); tannery D (veg) had

the highest water footprint and the lowest energy footprint, while tannery E (veg) scored

the lowest in water footprint and the highest in energy footprint (see Figure 14).

The carbon footprint proved to be more strongly dependent on the country electricity grid

mix than on the other sources of energy. This became evident when comparing the carbon

and energy footprint of tanneries F, G, K and L in Brazil and tannery H in China. The carbon

footprint of the Brazilian tanneries was decoupled from their energy footprint because of

the clean electricity grid mix in Brazil. However, although almost 60% of the energy

consumption of tannery H in China comes from biomass, approximately 95% of its carbon

footprint comes from the electricity grid mix.

In conclusion, each tannery proved to be very individual. Given the many material inputs

to making leather and the numerous points during processing at which a halt can be called

0 40 80 120 160 200

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

Water footprint [L/m2]

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Energy footprint [MJ/m2]

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6

Carbon footprint [kg CO2eq./m2]

//

/ /

//

12

Raw hide to finished leather

Raw hide to finished leather (Veg) Raw hide to tanned hide

Tanned hide to finished leather

Crust leather to finished leather

Raw hide to crust leather (Veg)


___________________________________________________________________________

47

and the leather sold on to someone else, getting an ‘average’ or even indicative measure

proved to be very challenging. This may explain why the benchmarking tanneries set up a

measure which they mostly use to monitor their own improvement, rather than trying to

use it for comparison with other tanneries or materials. Examples of this practice are the

PrimeAsia footprinting leather30 and Isa TanTec LITE Leather label31. There are wide

variations in the data on the environmental performance of different tanneries and these

need to be understood to help with developing usable metrics for leather product

footprint studies and best practices. The variability of the results calls for further

investigations on a larger sample of tanneries that use vegetable tanning.

4.5 Paper V

Rafael Laurenti, Åsa Moberg, Åsa Stenmarck, 2016. Calculating the pre-consumer waste footprint – a screening study of 10 selected products. Submitted manuscript.

In Paper V, a waste footprint metric potentially capable of improving understanding and

awareness among producers and consumers about the total waste generated in the

course of producing consumer products was developed and applied to 10 generic

products. Figure 15 summarises the results. Among the products analysed, electro-

electronic products had the largest waste footprint; beef scored higher than chicken; milk

had a relatively small waste footprint, but its waste footprint increased by approximately

10% when the footprint of the carton was added; and the waste footprint of clothing was

relatively large. The different waste footprints are not directly comparable, however, as the

function provided by the products was not the same.

30

http://www.primeasialeather.com/

31http://liteleather.com/co2_guide.php


___________________________________________________________________________

48

Figure 15 – Waste footprint (kg) of the 10 consumer goods studied. The bars for the laptop computer and

smartphone are not to scale.

Figure 16 – Percentage of the waste footprint (in blue) and the weight (in red) of 10 consumer goods studied

in relation to the sum of both.

As expected, the waste footprint analysis indicated that the waste that consumers dispose

of represents only a small fraction of the total waste generated in the economy due to

consumption (Figure 16). Most of the total waste occurs upstream from the point of

consumption during the production of fuels, electricity and materials necessary to produce

consumer goods.

Quantities and points of waste generation can differ quite radically. This is evident in

Figure 17, which shows the percentage contribution of production stages to the waste

0.86

4

0.097

25

17

12

0.009

0.025

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

1 kg of chicken meat

1 kg of beef

1 l of milk

Laptop computer

Smartphone

Pair of trousers

Training clothes

Pair of leather shoes

Milk carton

Newspaper

/ /

/ /

1200

86

kg

/ /

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%


1 kg of beef

1 l of milk

Laptop computer

Smartphone

Pair of trousers

Training clothes


Milk carton

Newspaper

Waste footprint Product weight


___________________________________________________________________________

49

footprint. For electro-electronic products, mining and beneficiation were the main source

of large quantities of waste. The waste from final production was the greatest contributor

to the waste footprint of clothes (wastewater in fabric production) and chicken and beef

(slaughter waste). The production of input materials, especially leather and metal parts,

was the largest source of waste for leather shoes, while wastes from fuel and electricity

production were more significant for the milk carton and milk. Full details of the waste

types can be found in the supporting information to Paper V.

Figure 17 – Percentage contribution of production stages to the waste footprint of the 10 consumer goods

analysed. ‘Final production’ represents the company at the top of the supply chain (e.g. the original

equipment manufacturer). ‘Production of input materials’ encompasses the whole supply chain of the

materials (i.e. tier 1, 2, 3, etc.). ‘Fuel and electricity’ are supplied to ‘production of input materials’ and ‘final

production’. Final production of chicken and beef refers to the slaughterhouse stage; of pair of trousers and

training clothes to fabric production; of the carton to packaging production; and of the newspaper to paper

production.

It should be noted that waste which can be recycled for material or recovered for energy,

according to the data source, is not included in the waste footprints above. If these wastes

had been included, the footprint would have been considerably larger.

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%


1 kg of beef

1 l of milk

Laptop computer

Smartphone

Pair of trousers

Training clothes


Milk carton

Newspaper

Fuel and electricity Production of input materials Final production

✐ăResults

___________________________________________________________________________

4.6

Rafael Laurenti, Rajib Sinha, Jagunintended environmental consequDevelopment

Paper VI

economic driv

cost, product price, market demand, product lifetime

economic drivers’ can be seen as the physical

The proposed

1. Framing the challenge

2. Defining

3. Expanding the system boundaries

4. Shrinking the system boundaries to accessible leverage points.

5. Setting goals and indicators.

6. Identifying management strategies to

Figure 18

be carried out qualitatively (screening) and a second iteration can be conducted quantitatively (inve

As Figure

a screening of the broad system, main variables and interconnections. The purpose of this

Results

___________________________________________________________________________

Paper VI

Rafael Laurenti, Rajib Sinha, Jagunintended environmental consequDevelopment 24(1), 1

Paper VI presents

economic drivers that result in changes in these flows (e.g.



proposed framework was structured into

Framing the challenge

Defining the aim and developing a conceptual model.

Expanding the system boundaries

Shrinking the system boundaries to accessible leverage points.

Setting goals and indicators.

Identifying management strategies to

18 – Proposed


Figure 18 shows,


___________________________________________________________________________

Rafael Laurenti, Rajib Sinha, Jagunintended environmental consequ

24(1), 1-17. doi: 10.1002/sd.1601.

presents a planning framework that connects material flows and the socio

ers that result in changes in these flows (e.g.



framework was structured into

Framing the challenge

the aim and developing a conceptual model.





Proposed planning framework


shows, a first iteration of the planning steps can be carried out qualitatively, as


___________________________________________________________________________

Rafael Laurenti, Rajib Sinha, Jagdeep Singh, unintended environmental consequ

. doi: 10.1002/sd.1601.

a planning framework that connects material flows and the socio




framework was structured into

Framing the challenge – what is the challenge and why is it a challenge?






framework (diagram from Paper VI)


modelling and simulation).

first iteration of the planning steps can be carried out qualitatively, as


___________________________________________________________________________

50

deep Singh, Björn Frostell, 2016unintended environmental consequences: A

. doi: 10.1002/sd.1601.




economic drivers’ can be seen as the physical and behavioural structure stated in Paper

framework was structured into six planning

what is the challenge and why is it a challenge?


Expanding the system boundaries – flows, stocks, drivers and their interlinkages.


Identifying management strategies to achieve the goals

iagram from Paper VI)





The

___________________________________________________________________________

Björn Frostell, 2016ences: A planning f



cost, product price, market demand, product lifetime). The ‘material flows’ and the ‘socio

behavioural structure stated in Paper

planning stages



flows, stocks, drivers and their interlinkages.


achieve the goals

iagram from Paper VI). A first iteration of the planning steps can





The Karma of

___________________________________________________________________________

Björn Frostell, 2016. Towards planning framework.


ers that result in changes in these flows (e.g. raw material cost, recycling

The ‘material flows’ and the ‘socio


stages (see Figure




achieve the goals.

. A first iteration of the planning steps can




arma of Products

___________________________________________________________________________

Towards addressing ramework. Sustainable


raw material cost, recycling

The ‘material flows’ and the ‘socio


Figure 18):







roducts

___________________________________________________________________________

addressing Sustainable

a planning framework that connects material flows and the socio-

raw material cost, recycling

The ‘material flows’ and the ‘socio-

behavioural structure stated in Paper III.



be carried out qualitatively (screening) and a second iteration can be conducted quantitatively (inventorying,



✐ăResults

___________________________________________________________________________

qualitative analy

(i.e. system boundaries and scope). A second iteration can be conducted qua

accounting for

behaviour

The planning stages were explained and illustrated

unintended consequences related to resource depletion in the mobile phone product

system.

Figure

accumul

material flow to (inflow) or from (outflow) stocks;

leading into (adding to) a stock; outflows of material

from) a stock. The valves in the middle of the pipes control the rate at which material flows are exchanged

by adjacent stocks.

by a simple arrow.

dimensions between: two or more drivers; drivers and rates; and rates and drivers. Feedback loops between

Only the results of a first qualitative iteration were presented in Paper VI. Outcomes of a

second quantitative iteration will be reported in a future publication.

application

longer life; designing for recycling and improving collection; designing for limiting phone

hibernation time; and internalising external costs.

Results

___________________________________________________________________________

qualitative analysis is to structure

system boundaries and scope). A second iteration can be conducted qua

accounting for and inventorying

behaviour of the system over time



system. Figure 19 shows the stock and flow diagram built

Figure 19 - Flows, stocks and drivers in the global mobile phone product system. Stocks

accumulation of materials and




by adjacent stocks. Drivers signify parameters that can change the rate of flows

by a simple arrow.


stocks, flows and drivers are al



application suggested



___________________________________________________________________________

sis is to structure


and inventorying

of the system over time



shows the stock and flow diagram built

Flows, stocks and drivers in the global mobile phone product system. Stocks

ation of materials and




Drivers signify parameters that can change the rate of flows

by a simple arrow. Cause and effect chains can occur at different time lag





suggested implementing the following improvement strategies: designing for



___________________________________________________________________________

sis is to structure and describe


and inventorying the main variables and modelling and simulating the

of the system over time when applicable





ation of materials and are represented as rectangles;





Cause and effect chains can occur at different time lag





implementing the following improvement strategies: designing for



___________________________________________________________________________

51

and describe the appropriate system to be


the main variables and modelling and simulating the

when applicable





are represented as rectangles;

material flow to (inflow) or from (outflow) stocks; inflows of materials are represented by a pipe (arrow)

leading into (adding to) a stock; outflows of materials are represented by pipes leading out of (subtracting





stocks, flows and drivers are also likely to occur






The

___________________________________________________________________________

the appropriate system to be



when applicable.

The planning stages were explained and illustrated in Paper VI


shows the stock and flow diagram built for the mobile phone example.


are represented as rectangles; flows characterise the rate over time of

inflows of materials are represented by a pipe (arrow)

s are represented by pipes leading out of (subtracting





so likely to occur (diagram from Paper VI)





hibernation time; and internalising external costs. ‘Product design and development’ and

The Karma of

___________________________________________________________________________

the appropriate system to be



in Paper VI using the case of


the mobile phone example.


flows characterise the rate over time of




Drivers signify parameters that can change the rate of flows are connecte

Cause and effect chains can occur at different time lags, spatial and organisation


iagram from Paper VI)


second quantitative iteration will be reported in a future publication. The results from the



‘Product design and development’ and

arma of Products

___________________________________________________________________________

the appropriate system to be considered

system boundaries and scope). A second iteration can be conducted quantitatively,


using the case of



Flows, stocks and drivers in the global mobile phone product system. Stocks symbolise





are connected to the valves

, spatial and organisation


iagram from Paper VI).


The results from the




roducts

___________________________________________________________________________

considered

itatively,


using the case of



symbolise





d to the valves

, spatial and organisation



The results from the





___________________________________________________________________________

52

‘Retailers and users as part of a collection system’ were indicated as central intervention

points.

It was concluded that by applying this way of thinking in environmental assessments, new

knowledge about cause and effect mechanisms by which unintended environmental

consequences arise could facilitate identification of management strategies for reducing

conflicts between local gains and global losses.

✐ă 53

“Wherever you go, there you are.”

― Jon Kabat-Zinn

✐ă 54

✐ăDiscussion The Karma of Products

___________________________________________________________________________

55

5 . Discuss ion

The models presented in Papers I-VI and their respective results are obviously a simplified

representation of reality. This section provides a further explanation about what the results

mean, highlighting their limitations and opportunities for further studies.

5.1 Quality and relevance of causal loop diagrams

The intention in Papers I-III was to illustrate – using CLD models – the large separation that

exists between the point of determination (design) and occurrence of environmental

impacts. However, a model capturing all the real world details would be neither useful nor

reliable due to its complexity (because possibilities for error increase as complexity

increases). A model is always a simplified representation of a particular domain of reality

and only needs to be valid for its specific purpose (Bossel, 2007). The models in Papers I

and II were a generic representation of certain modes of systems behaviour. Those in Paper

III represented the view of a particular group of people (workshop participants) on how

elicited variables of product systems (passenger car and washing machine) may interact.

The main message of Papers I-II was that neglecting interactions between physical and

social systems and incomplete knowledge of ripple effects triggered by innovations can

lead to overestimation of their benefits, and hence underestimation of negative impacts.

This corroborates work by Arvesen, Bright and Hertwich (2011) and Börjesson Rivera,

Håkansson, Svenfelt and Finnveden (2014). As further empirical evidence for the

ICT/electronic sector (other than that presented in Table 1 in Section 4.1), Galvin (2015)

identified structural changes in business, education, the military and households caused

by energy efficiency increases in ICT/electronics, which lead to proliferation of


___________________________________________________________________________

56

ICT/electronic devices and consequently increased energy consumption. The estimated

rebound effects in that case ranged between 115% and 161% in eight diverse empirical

examples.

Potential ripple effects need particular consideration among the LCA community, since

LCA may not be an appropriate tool to capture those interactions. Paper III argued that

methodologies that consider a more comprehensive set of parameters must be

investigated by the LCA community and suggested that group model building (GMB)

could help identify significant issues to be used as sources of variation in sensitivity

analysis in LCA. Variations in variables identified in the GMB could then be used to develop

scenarios in LCA to consider the interplay between physical and social systems.

5.2 The issue of using secondary data in LCA

A serious LCA practitioner would be familiar with the fact that secondary data should be

used with caution for comparisons in a life cycle perspective in the context of decision

making. This was particular evident in Paper IV, which adopted a narrow system boundary

(see Figure 8) to measure some specific environmental aspects of the leather life cycle. In

practice, however, secondary data about leather tanning and farm management are

commonly adopted as background data in life cycle studies of leather products. Although

this is a widely accepted practice, secondary data can omit acute fluctuations in sensitive

values. Paper IV showed that there is already wide variation in water and energy

consumption (and the related carbon footprint) among different tanneries without

including chemical production and waste and wastewater treatment, so the variations

when taking a wider life cycle approach are likely to be very great. Therefore, obtaining

specific primary data for leather production in LCA studies of leather products is

recommended.

It is thus necessary to have foreground data for different scenarios and origins of the

leather to obtain a more accurate evaluation of the carbon footprint of leather. Feeding

regime (e.g. grain- or grass-fed) is known to have a substantial impact on the carbon

footprint of cattle rearing, due in part to the time taken to reach a desired slaughter weight


___________________________________________________________________________

57

(Desjardins et al., 2012). Furthermore, methane emissions from cattle rearing strongly

influence the total carbon footprint of leather products.

Furthermore, if vegetable-tanned leather is being compared with chromium-tanned

leather, the fact that vegetable tannins can come from renewable trees, whereas chrome is

mined and used once in leather, must not be overlooked. This aspect of how a fair

comparison can be made between renewable natural materials and materials that come

from fossil fuels or, like chromium, from one-time use of a mined resource is an important

issue needing consideration.

5.3 Difficulties in acquiring primary data and data gaps

Although most LCAs focus on a product, in Paper IV the focus was on the process. From a

LCA perspective this was perfectly acceptable and a functional unit (1 m2 of leather) was

still clearly defined. Equally, excluding the activities to make the raw hide and transport it

to the processing facility was also acceptable from a LCA perspective, since these activities

were the same in both scenarios (chromium and vegetable leather). Conversely, because of

issues of confidentiality and (lack of) availability of LCI data, the upstream (chemical

production) and downstream (finished leather use and disposal) were excluded from the

study scope.

Questioning tanneries about their chemical inputs and quantities and assessing the end-

of-life stage were initially included in the study goal and scope. Chemical inputs and

potential differences in the end-of-life treatment were especially important to be included,

since one of the premises of the study was to compare chromium versus vegetable

processing. However, the request for data on chemical inputs was removed on the advice

of one of the leather experts who validated the data collection form, who said: “[…] asking

about their chemical inputs is like asking for their secret recipe”. Moreover, LCI data about

the many of the chemicals used in leather tanning and comparative information about the

end-of-life stage were not found in commercial databases.

These difficulties in acquiring data posed severe limitations to the study and the usefulness

of the results may be questioned from a rigorous LCA viewpoint. On the other hand, these

same limitations were also important areas in the field needing further consideration. More


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58

significantly, they show the need to think about how data accessibility could be improved

and how an open dialogue with companies could be initiated in order to disclose relevant

product information to the general public.

Another point worth mentioning is that the study used the LCI-based water footprint,

which is basically a water accounting approach that does not consider environmentally

geographically relevant factors such as water scarcity. More detailed and focused future

studies should perhaps adopt the water footprint assessment approach, which was

proposed by the water footprint network32. Similarly to the LCA, the water footprint

assessment comprises four phases: 1) Goal and scope, 2) accounting, 3) sustainability

assessment and 4) response formulation (Hoekstra, Chapagain, Aldaya & Mekonnen, 2011).

5.4 A need for improved waste declaration in LCA and standardised

principles and procedures?

LCA practice and literature to date extensively discuss and account for a number of

environmental impacts, including global warming, acidification, eutrophication,

cumulative energy demand, toxicity and resource depletion. In conventional LCA practice,

data about waste/residues outputs, presented in the material balance calculation between

elementary inputs from nature and elementary outputs to nature, are aggregated to

different environmental impacts. Consequently, although LCI accounts for waste outputs,

they are often not reported or analysed within the conventional LCA phases. This situation

may be reflect the current subjectivity about what is considered waste.

The term waste is frequently subjective because what is waste to one person may be raw

material to another. Government organisations and regulators provide legal definitions

and guidance for classifying waste. For, example, the Statistics Division of the United

Nations defines waste as (United Nations, 2000, p.227): “[…] materials that are not prime

products (that is, products produced for the market) for which the generator has no further

use in terms of his/her own purposes of production, transformation or consumption, and

of which he/she wants to dispose […]”. The EU Waste Framework Directive establishes

32

http://waterfootprint.org/en/water-footprint/water-footprint-assessment/


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59

waste as an object the holder discards, intends to discard or is required to discard (The

European Parliament the Council of the European Union, 2008). The Environment

Protection Act 1993 of South Australia (EPA, 2013) defines waste as “[…] (a) any discarded,

rejected, abandoned, unwanted or surplus matter, whether or not intended for sale or for

recycling, reprocessing, recovery or purification by a separate operation from that which

produced the matter; or (b) anything declared by regulation (after consultation under

section 5A) or by an environment protection policy to be waste”. The general picture is

then that countries around the globe and also each of the European Member States can

have a particular interpretation and thus legislation and classification of waste, which can

also be sector-specific.

Technically, considering a strict LCA perspective, GaBi software modelling principles adopt

the recommendation by the ILCD (International Reference Life Cycle Data System), which

specifies that all product and waste inputs and outputs must be completely modelled until

the final inventories exclusively show elementary flows (European Commission - Joint

Research Centre - Institute for Environment and Sustainability, 2010). Thus, in GaBi

databases waste is further treated for known waste pathways towards final emissions in

incinerators or landfill bodies, if suitable indications exist (e.g. according to waste

directives). Therefore waste treatment is integrated throughout the whole system during

modelling wherever possible and known to occur (Baitz et al., 2013).

The environmental product declaration (EPD) system33 has played an emerging and

important role in collection and compilation of LCA and additional relevant environmental

performance-related information for environmental labelling. Part of this additional

information regards waste generated along the whole life cycle production chains. The

quantities must be declared as non-hazardous, hazardous and radioactive waste, as

required by specific product category rules (PCRs) (EPD Environmental Product

33

An EPD is an independently verified and registered document that communicates transparent and

comparable information about the life cycle environmental impact of products. This document discloses a

product’s life cycle-based environmental impact that has been validated by an independent third party. An EPD

reports the results of a product’s LCA as well as other information relevant to a product’s environmental profile

(EPD Environmental Product Declaration, 2015).


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60

Declaration, 2015; The International EPD® System, 2015). However, more specific

information about the type waste (not only about these three generic types) is desirable.

In conclusion, the legal and financial responsibilities of waste generators are both country-

and sector-specific. Therefore in order to advance LCA practice regarding waste

accounting, an international standard on principles and procedures should perhaps be

developed. The questions that arise then are what this standard should comprise, how to

deal with sector and country specificities and whether an impact assessment method

should be developed, or whether classifying the waste into three types, as in the EPD

system, is sufficient.

5.5 Can product design(ers) help? Some suggestions and other general

inquiries

Can responsible product designers, engineers and managers evaluate and reverse what is

going wrong? How can they deal with the causality between products and environmental

pressure complexly entangled with the roles products play in people’s lives, globalised

supply chains and an economic system that gravitates strongly around profitability targets

and sales expansion?

Several suggestions for developments in the design realm can be delineated and compiled

based on the results in this thesis. Essential indicators that should be delivered to product

designers refer to information about: (a) the increasing spatial and decreasing temporal

separation of production, consumption and waste management, (b) constraints in raw

material supply and (c) marginal changes in money and time spent (consumption and

investment dynamics). In addition, designers should: (c) guide user behaviour towards

increased product lifetime and reuse (including consumer trust in refurbished products),

e.g. modular design of products for longer life; and (d) design in a way that decreases

hibernation (stock in the use phase), e.g. a user benefit when they recycle the product at

the end of its life. All the above (a-d) could be developed in modules of CAD (computer-

aided design) tools to effectively assist designers.


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61

Is there a role for policy makers to assist designers? Policy makers could facilitate imposing

changes in relative prices, i.e. higher taxes on environmentally pollutant

materials/components/solutions. Policy makers could also intervene with regulative

restrictions on the use of environmentally pollutant materials. Taxation systems (e.g. VAT)

which favour the introduction of functional sales rather than product sales (PSS) are also a

possible option. These types of policy interventions may assist designers to find and

choose to use the best possible solution for the environment.

In relation to the use of environmental footprint indicators, a family of footprint indicators

(Lifset, 2014; Ridoutt & Pfister, 2013) with different levels of aggregation, i.e. inventory-

orientated footprints and impact-orientated footprints (Fang & Heijungs, 2015), is probably

needed in a decision-making context. This is evident when the carbon footprint (CO2eq.

emissions) is compared with the waste footprint scores in Paper V. As can be seen in Figure

20, the carbon footprint gave a different picture than the waste footprint. The laptop

computer and smartphone again scored highest; but beef and leather shoes appeared in

third and fourth position, respectively. Beef also had a much higher carbon footprint than

chicken meat. The CO2eq. emissions for producing a pair of (cotton) trousers and a

(polyester) shorts and t-shirt (training clothes) were quite similar. However, unlike the case

for the waste footprint, the carbon footprint of 1 litre of milk was much higher than that of

the carton.


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62

Figure 20 - Carbon footprint (kg CO2eq.) of the 10 consumer goods analysed. The bars for laptop computer

and smartphone are not to scale. Sources: chicken meat and beef (Weidema, Wesnae, Hermansen,

Kristensen & Halberg, 2008); laptop computer (Ecoinvent, 2014); smartphone (Apple, 2014); pair of trousers

and training clothes (Strand, 2015); pair of leather shoes (Gottfridsson & Zhang, 2015); milk packaging (Jelse,

Eriksson, & Einarson, 2009); newspaper (Ecoinvent, 2014).

Defining boundaries for responsibilities of the other actors (both individuals and groups

such as business organisations, administrative authorities, consumer organisations, branch

organisations, etc.) may be as important as providing the right tools and setting the

expectations upon designers to reverse what is going wrong. One unresolved aspect is

how the necessary interplay and responsibilities of different actors in production,

consumption and waste management systems can be considered. Another is how to

incorporate the voice and interest of the future generations – have we the ethical right to

take decisions that will compromise their future? How about conciliating sustainable

consumption and justice? An open dialogue about these issues should be fostered in

society.

3.6

28.7

1.1

6.3

5.3

10.5

0.06

0.10

0 10 20 30 40 50


1 kg of beef

1 l of milk

Laptop computer

Smartphone

Pair of trousers

Training clothes


Milk carton

Newspaper

/ /

209.5/ /

110

kg CO2eq.

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“ Though nobody can go back and make a new beginning,

anyone can start over and make a new ending.”

― Chico Xavier

✐ă 64

✐ăConclusions The Karma of Products

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65

6 . Conc lus ions

This thesis investigated the mechanisms of predetermination and generation of

environmental impacts using CLD and LCA-based footprinting. Objectives i-iii introduced

in Section 1.1 of the thesis were addressed as follows:

i. Examine and illustrate operating causal chains in the economic system of society

(Papers I-III)

Paper I qualitatively analysed the modes of system behaviour of (a) improvement actions

leading to unintended environmental consequences, (b1) changing the focus of

businesses from selling products to offering services to fulfil consumer needs and (b2)

introducing environmental policy instruments to internalise external costs. Theories from

various research fields were integrated and the system structure of those modes of system

behaviour was represented in CLDs. The results indicated that combining product-service

system offerings and environmental policy instruments can be one important aspect of a

giant transformation towards decoupling economic growth from consumption and

environmental impacts and may represent a transition pathway from a linear economy to a

circular economy.

Paper II connected the modes of system behaviour described in Paper I to some pervasive

sustainability challenges to the design of electronic products, namely (i) redundant

consumption; (i) embodiment of environmental and social impacts in products; and (iii)

liberation of scarce production or consumption factors that can encourage increasing

consumption.


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66

In Paper III, two CLDs of product systems were developed, for a household washing

machine and a conventional passenger car. The diagrams showed how selected variables

interact by means of cause-effect linkages to affect the environmental impacts of the

products. They also indicated that the variables selected by experts may tend to comprise

a physical (included in traditional LCA practice) and behavioural structure. The variables of

the behavioural structure were more of the nature of soft (qualitative) variables,

dependent for instance on context/territory, government policies and taxes and consumer

behaviour. Although these variables are not included in conventional LCA, they could be

considered through sensitivity analyses or by using “personas” to describe different

profiles of users. CLDs would still be interesting to consider when used for the purpose of a

first screening to define appropriate system boundaries, incorporate qualitative attributes

and as a tool to facilitate communication and agreement on assumptions among

stakeholders in a collaborative modelling environment (through GMB). GMB and CLD can

help create linkages between quantitative and qualitative variables and include macro

rather than only micro effects in LCAs. This could strengthen the robustness of the

recommended actions from quantitative detailed analyses.

ii. Calculate environmental footprints of a range of consumer goods (Papers IV-V)

Paper IV surveyed the water and energy resource usage and derived GHG emissions of

vegetable and chromium leather processing technology in 12 tanneries in seven countries

and revealed wide variations in the data. This demonstrates the difficulty of trying to

compare diverse processes and the narrow limits of system boundaries. Main conclusions

of the study were:

• Wide variations exist in the data on the environmental performance of different

tanneries and these need to be understood when developing usable metrics for

leather product footprint studies and best practices.

• The variability in results demonstrates that secondary data for the tanning phase

should be used with caution in a decision-making context. The use of primary data

on specific leather would be advisable for LCA studies of leather goods.

• The aspect of how a fair comparison can be made between renewable natural

materials and materials that come from fossil fuels or from one-time use of a mined

resource is a major area needing consideration.


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67

Paper V developed a waste footprint metric potentially capable of improving

understanding and awareness of producers and consumers about the total waste

generated in the course of producing products, as an important coefficient to measure the

environmental pressure caused by products. Tests of this waste footprint metric on 10

consumer goods revealed that it may be not the best for comparisons between products

for improved decision making. Instead, it can be an effective vehicle of communication

with consumers because waste is common to everyone’s lives. Furthermore, valuable

physical information is maintained in the metric in relation to pressure exerted by

industrial and consumption activities, and this is probably the initial purpose of footprint

analysis. Despite subjective choices inherent in characterisation factors (e.g. the time

horizon determined for global warming potential), in a decision-making context the waste

footprint of products may be accompanied by an indicator that characterises emissions

(e.g. carbon footprint).

In the future, different tools and metrics will be needed for different stakeholders. Papers

IV and V illustrate the need for simple understandable tools as complements to advanced

LCA tools for designers, companies, consumers (including business-to-business) and

environmental policy makers. In a larger context, the waste footprint metric is in line with

current EU discussions on national indicators for the upcoming circular economy.

However, more research on categorising waste types (into e.g. hazardous, non-hazardous

and inert) and assessment of potential risks is needed. Furthermore, having a standardised

definition of waste in industry, which is currently lacking, is a pre-requisite for improving

waste declaration in LCA.

iii. Propose a planning framework to facilitate inclusion of unintended environmental

consequences when devising improvement actions (Paper VI)

Paper VI proposed a planning framework that connects material flows and the socio-

economic drivers that result in changes in these flows, to address unintended

environmental consequences. The framework can assist in performing qualitative analyses

of what is important to consider in order to strengthen the robustness of the

recommended actions from quantitative detailed analyses. The framework emphasises the

need for (i) having different settings of system boundaries (broader and narrower), (ii)


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68

explicitly accounting for causal relationships and feedback loops and (iii) identifying

responsibilities between stakeholders (e.g. producers, consumers, collectors, recyclers,

policy makers). Application of the framework is exemplified using the case of the global

mobile phone product system.

The appropriate unit of analysis to tackle the unsustainability of production and

consumption systems may in fact be the causality between predetermination and

occurrence of environmental pressures, subtly formatted. This shift from analysing a

product to decrypting its potential causality during the design phase of a product could

prevent unintended environmental consequences from arising. For this venture,

conceptual (such as the CLD technique) and analytical tools (such as the environmental

footprint) are needed. While both types of tools are pertinent for communicating discrete

attributes to specific stakeholders, CLD is relevant for structuring the appropriate system

boundaries and indicating leverage points in a system, while environmental footprinting

provides factual evidence for decision-making support and raising awareness.

6.1 Beyond the results – a philosophical final reflection and wish for the

future

For almost 30 years, ‘sustainable development’ has been a political slogan and a frank and

fair transition towards a sustainable world may still a promise for the future. The

unprecedented scale of man-made damage to the Earth’s natural systems and the unequal

distribution of the derived wealth rise fundamental doubts about whether humankind is

making any meaningful ‘progress’ towards development that can be continuously

sustained amidst the constraints of planet Earth and of moral and ethical principles. This

has been the paradox of progress; while it has undoubtedly increased human wellbeing, it

has also prevented people from flourishing, thriving, loving and have compassion for

others without provoking significant consequences for the functioning of the Earth’s

natural system upon which society’s economic system depends. In other words, it has both

fostered and threatened global ability to sustain, or so-called sustain(h)ability.

Many sustainability challenges await and the effort needed to overcome these challenges

is herculean and the scale of change is colossal. However, it may be the case that we are


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69

measuring the wrong thing, or it may be the case that moral and ethical development is

lagging behind the technical development. What can be done to accelerate moral

development?

More significantly for the future, if the ultimate purpose of bringing products to existence

is to satisfy consumer needs and increase human wellbeing, eco-efficiency tools (e.g. LCA)

should probably be coupled with a certain type of individual and collective ‘unit of

flourishing’ to measure, compare and communicate a genuine (not in economic terms)

increase/subtraction of subjective wellbeing. Research is needed on the kind of ethical

principles under which products should be designed and sold, and the kind of wellbeing

products should foster, amidst the constraints of the Earth. Moreover, if humans often

adopt a narrow, self-interested perspective and local actors have often come up with

solutions to the tragedy of the commons34 problem themselves, how can people be made

to act as enlightened self-interested individuals, in a sense that furthering the interest of

the commons will ultimately serve their own self-interest? How can people be made aware

of the fact that we all are part of an interconnected whole and this is what creates the

foundation for everything we love and respect on this planet? I wish and hope that

someone in my lifetime will write in a technical PhD thesis entitled ‘The Karma of Products –

Exploring the Causality of Human and Nature Success’.

34

A situation in which individuals act independently and rationally according to each's self-interest, contrary to

the best interests of the whole group, depleting some common resource (Hardin, 1968).

✐ă 70

✐ă 71

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